NASA
scientists have identified a violent cosmic eruption that temporarily
blinded a NASA satellite in June. An X-ray telescope
that tracks
gamma rays on board the NASA Swift satellite
captured a record-breaking burst of rays that had left scientists
mystified about its massive brightness and point of origin.

At
it's peak the gamma-ray explosion – documented as the most powerful
emission on record -- produced between 143,000 and 145,000 X-ray
protons per second, which is about 10 to 15 times brighter than
previous bursts captured by the telescope.

After
weeks of analysis, researchers are now indicating that the astounding
blast was produced by a massive star collapsing into a black
hole.

According to Astronomy.comand Space.com,
although the Swift satellite was designed specifically to study
gamma-ray bursts, the instrument was not designed to handle an X-ray
blast this bright.

"The intensity of these X-rays was
unexpected and unprecedented," said Neil Gehrels from NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He said the
burst, named GRB 100621A, is the brightest X-ray source that Swift
has detected since the observatory began X-ray observation in early
2005. "Just when we were beginning to think that we had seen
everything that gamma-ray bursts could throw at us, this burst came
along to challenge our assumptions about how powerful their X-ray
emissions can be.”

The event was so powerful, it disrupted
the telescope's data-analysis capabilities.

"The burst
was so bright when it first erupted that our data-analysis software
shut down," said Phil Evans from the University of Leicester in
the United Kingdom. "So many photons were bombarding the
detector each second that it just couldn't count them quickly enough.
It was like trying to use a rain gauge and a bucket to measure the
flow rate of a tsunami."

The X-rays had been traveling
for over 5 billion years before being detected by the Swift
satellite.

The burst lasted for about one minute and was about
200 times brighter than the Crab Nebula, an X-ray radiation benchmark
for astronomers.

The X-ray blast is the brightest ever
detected from outside of the Milky Way galaxy.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

"Purely false. There is not one single piece of existing technology that allows us to measure anything outside of our physical reach (that you can claim to be accurate)."

I'm sorry but that's bullcrap. If you're talking technology we got extremely accurate measurements of the distance to the moon before anything landed there thanks to radar, and even laser ranging. (of course we got even better measurements after putting a retroreflector there). In fact radar has been used on asteroids that we have not physically reached at all. But you don't need sophisticated technology. The planet Neptune was discovered MATHEMATICALLY. In the 19th century! Just by some very clever mathematicians observing the gravitational effect it had on the orbits of other planets like Uranus. They noticed a disturbance, did some calculations, and deduced that there had to be an object we haven't discovered yet. Then telescopes were pointed at the predicted spot, and it was right there! This was proof that our understanding of gravity and orbital mechanics was correct. There's no better example then a prediction leading to a discovery. Just as in the world of chemistry Mendeleev left blank spaces on the periodic table for elements that had not been discovered yet, because he accurately deduced that they must exist and just haven't been seen.

quote: I'm sorry but that's bullcrap. If you're talking technology we got extremely accurate measurements of the distance to the moon before anything landed there thanks to radar, and even laser ranging.

Re-read the part where I mentioned "physical reach". Your comprehension skills are poor.

The rest of your post points out sound science; Science that is well within reason to assume that they are accurate, especially since they are within our solar system (our physical reach). I forget how far our space probes (gigitty) have gone as of today, but it is still within our reach obviously. Have all of our predictions about distance to these planets come to be true? Yeah, sure but you can't automatically assume that these methods work for something OUTSIDE OF OUR REALM OF OBSERVATION!! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THIS? Could they be right? Sure, and they probably are about a good amount of things. Does anyone "know"? No; and claiming so makes them/you lust after power and meaningless knowledge. You completely misunderstand my original post, and I honestly can not think of a different way to say it.

You are making it out to look like I am denying all scientific discovery and processing, and that's just simply wrong to characterize me as such. You plain out just do not understand the original question/s logic concepts. Quit accusing me like you know me, because you don't.

"Re-read the part where I mentioned "physical reach". Your comprehension skills are poor."

Now you're just spinning. These things are within our physical reach TODAY, but as I mentioned we got our measurements BEFORE we were able to reach them, and in some cases we proved the existence of something that we didn't even know was there! Two hundred years before it became within our physical reach, get it?! We proved the existence of something that we could not see, touch, smell you name it.For the rest of your post, I don't understand where you get this crazy idea that scientists claim to know everything for certain. That's not at all how science works! It operates under the assumption that this is the best available explanation TODAY. That's it. The only one claiming that scientists know something to be the only explanation is YOU.

quote: These things are within our physical reach TODAY, but as I mentioned we got our measurements BEFORE we were able to reach them

Wow, now I've reached the point of arguing with an idiot because I clearly JUST SAID that exact same thing in my previous post. Either you didn't read it, or (as I said earlier) your reading comprehension skills are poor.

quote: I don't understand where you get this crazy idea that scientists claim to know everything for certain. That's not at all how science works!

That's funny, weren't you the one that moaned about people calling you names and saying you wanted a civilized discussion? Seems to me like you're the idiot if you can't even express what you're trying to say.Time and time again presented with multiple explanations of why your existential psychobabble was either implausible or silly, you still persist. That's the definition of stupidity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

quote: Seems to me like you're the idiot if you can't even express what you're trying to say.

I expressed what I was trying to convey just fine (and got immediately persecuted). It's funny how some people got it, some didn't. It's all opinion anyway, so no-one is better than the other. What I get angry at is how you just right to negative comments about me just because you don't understand my points.

2)There's a difference between being able to measure something, and being able to comprehend it. You will find that while we can observe and measure many phenomena we don't claim to understand exactly how they work.

3)Even if the things we see are not exactly what they appear to be, that does not affect our reality! For instance if we lived in a 9 dimensional universe and the sun was actually nothing more then a shadow of some other incomprehensible object, it still wouldn't change the fact that in our dimension it's a star, with specific properties we can learn. It's like an ant drowning in an olympic size pool... the ant will never know if the pool is a pool, a river, or an ocean. The word ocean will not have any meaning to him. But that will not change the fact that water is wet, that gravity makes pulls him down etc.Let me repeat that, we can do amazing science without fully comprehending everything, and by putting the knowledge we gain in doubt you give a great disservice to every scientist.